Boneshaker Magazine

Boneshaker Magazine had my full attention after just four words. “Ever eaten a bear?” Terrifying, for a vegetarian whose idea of venturing into the wild is catching a bus that goes through Elephant and Castle. But these are cyclists who seem a bit wild.

I’m not a cyclist so found it difficult to get into the mindset of the magazine at times. I see a bike as a bike, not as a tool for social change and, guilty as charged, I sniggered when the term ‘spare tyre’ was used. But I liked Boneshaker. The articles throughout are personal; they’re stories of achievement and the passion of the writers is clear. There’s no technical lingo here and it’s refreshing to see a cycling magazine written for all kinds of people rather than just team pedal power.

I enjoyed the feature on Seo Young-Deok, a Korean artist who created sculptures of the human form from bicycle chains. The sculptures took him a year to create and are now worth £25,000.

It does go a bit over the top at times. One particularly yikes moment is when the road is described as: “The promise we’re capable of climbing out of our comfort zone, severing our umbilical cord and giving birth to a more beautiful version of ourselves.” A bit overboard considering the majority of cyclists you see, especially in London, are either struggling between buses or getting run over.

Boneshaker presents the dream life of a cyclist, showing everything perfect about the sport. And it’s worked – I’m now completely sold on the idea of cycling and I’d definitely buy a bike if it wasn’t so much exercise.